Barence writes: "Fewer than 1% of the exploits detected by Microsoft in the first half of last year were against so-called zero-day vulnerabilities – those that were previously unknown. That figure raises a question: if the vast majority of real-world exploits are “known threats”, what makes zero days so valuable that they have spawned a hidden industry of bounty-hunting researchers? The zero-day bounty hunters looks at the big money involved in finding zero-day vulnerabilities, what kind of people — with good and bad intentions — make it their business to look for them, and whether offering "bounties" is actually the wisest way for the security industry to handle the issue. It also includes an interview with a professional security researcher and ethical hacker about how and why he does what he does."

kierny writes: "Calls for the death of online anonymity get invoked by everyone from the anti-cyber-bullying crowd to social networking proponents. Tie comments to an actual person, goes the reasoning, and people will think twice before trying to intimidate someone online. But recent analyses have found numerous benefits associated with being able to post anonymously. One project, for example, found that such posts helped improve the mental states of troubled teens. Likewise, commenting software maker Disqus has found that pseudonymous posters are not only the prolific posters, but also responsible for the highest quality posts."

be_kul writes: "A question by a leftist German parlament member was answered by the German government recently, disclosing some details of a forthcoming secret meeting between ministers of internal affairs of the so-called G6 states, members of the European Union Council and the US Dept. of Homeland Security. The topic is, of course, counter-terrorism, data transfer and the police state. More information — including info from the British Government and others – in this German article: http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/36/36890/1.html. If you want to meet Big Brother in person, come to Munich on May 17/18"

ARM processors, which power virtually all iOS, Android, and Windows Phone smartphones and tablets today, are different from the x86 chips that power PCs. The chips have new requirements for security and power management, and Microsoft is the only one who can meet those needs.

An anonymous reader writes: Speaking at the SIEGE 2010 conference, Atari's founder Nolan Bushnell claimed that mobile gaming platforms such as the iPhone and Android would overtake Nintendo's market share, which would be limited to younger audiences only in the end. Controversial claim from an industry veteran, do you believe he can be right?

alexo writes: CNN reports that an Iranian court has sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, the so-called "blogfather" of Iran, to 19.5 years in prison.

Derakhshan, a 35-year-old Canadian-Iranian blogger and activist, was "convicted of cooperating with enemy states, making propaganda against the Islamic system of government, promoting small anti-revolutionary groups, managing obscene web sites and insulting Islamic sanctities".

Slashdot mentioned Derakhshan in an article about Iranian bloggers back in 2006.

Scotteh writes: Researchers at MIT have developed a cost-effective way of generating power by dye colored glass to send light across the window to solar cells at the windows edge. This method has been called a "solar concentrator." From the article, "The solar concentrator produces 10 times more energy than that of the current systems, so hypothetically, they can be sold for a fraction of the price. "Since you're using a lot less solar cells, you can potentially reduce the cost of solar electricity," Mapel said."
The team at MIT estimates that this product will be available within the next three years.

Some guy named Chris writes: "As a followup to this story, Valdosta State University student Hayden Barnes has been reinstated by the University Board of Regents. You may recall that Barnes was was expelled for the descriptions he placed on his Facebook photos protesting the building of a parking deck on campus. No word on whether the publicity brought to bear on this case by the internet community had anything to do with the decision."

Let them read books, commands the impressively named Professor Tara Brabazon, of the University of Brighton where she is Professor of Media Studies. She says that she has banned her own students from using Wikipedia or Google as research sources, and insists they read printed texts only. In a lecture, she argues that only thus will we produce the critical thinkers that the nation needs.

Having seen Brabazon in action as a keynote conference speaker two or so years ago I was amused at her unreadable sketchy OHP sheets (why not use a snazzy animated-with-sound.pps like the rest of the pros?), intrigued by the layers of meaninglessness that revealed themselves behind the rhetoric she spoke, and appalled when I realised that I was sitting in a packed audience listening to someone brazen enough to claim the title media studies professor who felt confident to make the decision to exclude the fastest growing medium as a source of information about itself. Interesting that she's quite prepared to use the net for self-promotion..."